Organizing and Playing

My grandson, Brandon, spent Thanksgiving with me. He and his little sister, Natalie came over Wednesday night. He wanted to be with me on Thanksgiving because he thought I would be all alone eating salad on Thanksgiving. What a hoot!


Natalie only lasted one day before she became homesick. Brandon stayed all weekend. We played marathon sessions of Plants vs Zombies, and he helped me organize my longarm tools and templates.

All my other grandchildren are in Tennessee and I won’t see them until Christmas.

Below are pictures of longboards under the machine in dish racks, an idea someone posted on a longarm forum, and also the small templates in racks on the bookcase.  I purchased pot lids from The Container Store for the smaller items.  I also bought a plastic wheeled bookcase that I can slide up to the longarm and keep pins and small rulers handy.

Fabric Garage Sale

I went to a garage sale Saturday. The fat quarters were $1 each or 12 for $10, and fabric was $4 per yd, batiks $5 per yd. Someone was selling their sister’s fabric after her death. Apparently no one else in the family could use it. It was advertised in our guild and many of the “shoppers” were guild members.


She must have had a very large stash as this was the second sale and there will be another one after Christmas. Wow! I would have liked to see her studio, and her quilts. She had beautiful fabric.

Below is a picture of what I brought home – 12 fat quarters, 2 pieces 3 yards each and one 1 yard piece.

I also loaded a practice piece and started warming up as I haven’t quilted since I went to Portland. 

Miss Spider’s Fantasy Flowers.

I had bid on this quilt in the silent auction at Trinity Valley Quilt Show. Apparently 2 people bid higher than me, but then they both backed out of purchasing so it was offered to me. It was made by a woman named Kay Valentine.


I love the use of fabrics, and the colors. On the stems she double stitched with green and it makes the stems look really spiky.

I have it hanging in my kitchen.

quilt inspiration Houston Quilt Festival

Here is a link to the winners  http://www.quilts.org/winners.html

Here are some of the photos I took of quilting:

More Travel

I spent last weekend at the Houston Quilt Festival with 3 friends.  It is always an awesome show.

I am flying to MSP today for a long weekend with a friend.  I will be back Sunday morning, so maybe I can post pics then.

After I get back from Minneapolis, I will be home for 3 weeks and I plan to make progress on all my projects! 

Christmas Tablerunner

When I am not traveling I can sew a bit most evenings after work. It is something I miss when I do a lot of traveling.


I have a small portable sewing machine that I took on one work trip that was two weeks long. Maybe I need to do that again, or some hand sewing project, though I am barely competent at hand sewing.

This week I worked on making winding ways blocks in Christmas fabrics. I am not consistent enough on the centers. The way the Go die cuts the fabric you have two opposite color blocks. I think I will put three together for a table runner with a border. The ones that aren’t as even as I would like I am going to make potholders out of and use them to audition what quilting I will do on the table runners. I am planning on donating one table runner to our quilt show silent auction so I want it to be especially nice.